Precious Stones
by Cascade Waters
Summary: All that glitters is not gold--sometimes it has fingers and toes and waaaaay too much spunk! WARNING: Contains reference to spanking. Don't like, don't read.


Precious Stones  
By firechild  
Rating: GSITSWATS (for scenes of Great Scott, I think she's well and truly sapped!)  
Warnings: References to spanking; lack of actual experience in writing Legolas...  
Disclaimers: The canon characters belong to Tolkien; while I could claim to own the oc's, this time they actually belong to Mel. I'm not gonna see a penny for this.  
A/N: I wrote this for a fellow fan to celebrate her twins coming home from the hospital. It was my first Leggy fic, one of my first LOTR attempts, and I didn't have any confidence that it would be decent. Still not sure.

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"They are such jewels."

Legolas turned, smiling, at the voice of his future queen, his eyes welcoming her into the comfort of their sitting room, which served as a nursery both for their garden and for their children. The scents of so many flowers, exotic and common, embraced the air with the heady fragrance of life. Here he was surrounded by beauty, by all the brightest and softest treasures sprung from the soil of Middle Earth, and in his long and regal life he had seen nearly every kind of thing that could live in his world, yet the elegant Elf before him, along with the souls they had welcomed to life through their union, were nearly too stunningly lovely for his heart to handle. "Indeed, they are. Come, Meliana, and we will observe our wealth together."

She took his hand and they turned as one to watch the youngest of their Elflings as the two tiny beings went about their most solemn work. After all, at least in the twins' minds, the fate of all of Mirkwood rested in two small pairs of Elven hands.

Meliana and Legolas chuckled in unison as Abigail babbled determinedly in some combination of Dwarvish and her native  
tongue, intent on the obedience of several plants and clearly not understanding why they would choose to defy her wishes. Not afraid of trench warfare, she hitched up her gown--a wisely crafted garment of a green too dark to show grass stains--and hunkered down, compacting her already small frame so that she was nearly eye-level with one stubborn tuber plant. Legolas smiled to himself at the thought that she was rather unimpressed with the adult form of that particular plant, as it appeared with alarming regularity on her dinner plate and never seemed to disappear from the plate without considerable… discussion from her parents. He'd thought one day about telling her that the baby tuber and the vegetable were one and the same, but had wisely decided to let her figure out that fact of life on her own.

His Abi never glanced up, but she must have sensed his watching, for just as he raised an eyebrow at some of her more colorful babblings, she squirmed reflexively and chose her words with more care. She and her father had also had more than one… discussion about her speech, and he was glad to see that she remembered and saved herself from more stress. Legolas kept meaning to speak with Gimli about this problem, but it never seemed to come up between the two friends, and the Elf was actually hoping that it ceased to be an issue altogether. She was only a handful of years old, so perhaps she could unlearn some things as easily as she seemed to have learned them.

Or not. His Abigail was nothing if not a fighter--from the first moments of her life, she had fought not just to draw breath as  
normal beings do, but to take it in and only release it when it had been set aflame. As another of her subjects, a vibrant  
wildflower, refused to rise for her, her emerald eyes--the eyes of her mother-- flashed, and her colorful tone returned. Her father sighed, moving to step out into the garden proper and address the issue.

"Abi-nin."

Legolas stopped mid-stride and watched the change come over the girl. The fire in her eyes cooled somewhat, and she seemed to calm; even her mutterings were more gentle, if no less determined. She took a deep breath, nodded to herself as she made a decision, then turned resolutely to another of the childrens' miniature "gardens" (as with all of their other Elflings, Meliana had requested that the twins be given small flats of assorted plants with which to bond.)

It never ceased to amaze him that, though Adam seldom spoke and Abigail was always chattering, one soft word from the brother could often redirect the sister more quickly than a lecture and a trip over the Prince's knee. This time the endearment, which when translated was comfortably possessive, seemed to serve as a reminder, though of what their parents could not be sure. He'd said it calmly, virtually a whisper, but she'd heard. Legolas and Meliana both believed that somehow their youngest son had a knack for inspiring feelings of safety and serenity with his voice, though whether it only applied to his twin or to others, no one seemed to know. Legolas certainly hoped that it was a general talent, for he was aware that the twins had at times been threatened, and while Abi would try to kick and slap and bite her way to safety, the Prince wasn't so sure that Adam would be so aggressive physically.

Legolas had to remind himself, whenever his mind turned to these darker thoughts, that Adam, too, was a fighter--the boy had been born ready to handle whatever challenges came at him, even if he did it differently than his sister. As cool as she was hot, as comfortably warm as she was restlessly raging, Adam had the ethereally blue eyes of his father and the sapphire layers of a  
relaxing river. He had his struggles and his weaknesses--he was no stranger to discipline, and his deep currents sometimes outpaced his judgment--but in his quiet nature and keen understanding, Adam reminded Legolas fondly of King Elessar, as Abi often made him think of the Evenstar.

The Prince of Mirkwood smiled to himself as he pictured in his mind's eye the two friends, Man and Elf, whose union had given a  
war-ravaged world a new hope for a future less fraught with division and distrust. Against the King and Queen's express wishes, the twins had effectively been named for them--in an ancient dialect, "Abigail" meant "bathed in starlight" and "Adam"  
meant "he sees and heals."

To Legolas' great surprise and delight, it was Meliana who'd chosen those names and suggested them to him a month before the birth; she, too, felt she had been blessed by the hearts of their friends, and wished to honor them. When the labor proved difficult and the twins tiny and weak, the Prince had wished only to have their names reflect the love and pride he felt for his beloved wife, sensing that she needed to feel honored and cherished, but Meliana had insisted on Adam and Abigail, helping Legolas understand that his desire to honor her was enough. Thus, these two precious little beings, healthy now and oblivious to their own true value, were constant reminders to Legolas that there could be no woman in all of Middle Earth who could be a more perfect mate for him than Meliana Angeli of Mirkwood.

Satisfied now that Abigail was absorbed with a rather more cooperative plant and that Adam was content to stroke the leaves  
of a velvet lily in much the same way as his father often stroked Adam's cheek, Legolas decided to let his daughter's indiscretion go uncalled. Two of his children were due to return this afternoon from a long journey, and Legolas very much intended to hold holy the moment when he could have them in his arms again. But before he greeted them, he tightened his grip on his wife's hand, drawing her back into their chambers--he felt it was time once again to properly thank his Mel for the gifts of their children, the jewels in his crown...

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End file.
